Digital Accessibility as a Wellness Imperative: Advancing Equity in Black Women’s Health
Digital Accessibility as a Determinant of Wellness and Public Health
Although health innovation and online services have progressed significantly, digital accessibility is still an often-overlooked factor in wellness, especially for Black women. This challenge goes beyond access to devices or internet connections and raises a deeper question: Who is wellness truly designed for, and who has the opportunity to access it in today’s digital landscape?
For Black women, the answer is layered and often unjust. Digital health spaces such as telehealth platforms, mental health apps, wellness blogs, and resource directories are rarely built with our realities in mind. We are met with tools and content that fail to acknowledge our lived experiences, ignore cultural nuances, or center perspectives that do not reflect our truth. In some cases, our stories are dismissed or diluted in favor of more “universal” narratives. And even when Black women take the lead, organizing, creating, and pushing forward inclusive health content, our work is often underrecognized, underfunded, or lost in the noise of systems not built to support us.
Digital accessibility should not be viewed as a technical bonus or a compliance checkbox. It is a necessity for public health. When health information isn’t presented in plain language, when platforms are not trauma-informed or culturally resonant, and when tools fail to center the communities most at risk, they become inaccessible. Instead of bridging gaps, they deepen them.
For Black women navigating chronic illness, maternal health risks, mental health fatigue, or the everyday weight of wellness neglect, digital spaces can offer clarity and community or reinforce exclusion and invisibility.
While in-person care is still important, digital health access provides the kind of flexibility many of us need. Between work, caregiving, and simply trying to keep up with life, we often do not have the time, transportation, or energy to consistently show up in physical spaces. Sometimes the only quiet moment to prioritize our health is in between responsibilities. Having the ability to check symptoms, connect with a mental health resource, or find a provider who truly understands us in real time can make a meaningful difference in how we care for ourselves.
Yet many of the “wellness at your fingertips” solutions promoted today do not reflect our lives. They are not built for us, and in their absence, we are expected to adjust ourselves rather than question the systems that fail us.
The Wellness Divide in the Digital World
Digital health tools like apps, podcasts, and online support groups are becoming more common. But without cultural relevance, they miss the mark. When content does not speak to your lived experience or makes you feel othered, it becomes harder to trust, engage, or act on.
Black women often experience a wellness divide. We are present online but not always reflected. We scroll through platforms that tokenize us or ignore us completely. This exclusion not only discourages engagement but deepens mistrust in a system that has long failed us.
As Johnson and Delk (2024) found in their study of culturally tailored digital content, representation matters. Health content that reflects Black women’s voices, values, and needs leads to stronger engagement, deeper trust, and more informed health decisions.
Why Representation Online Matters
This disconnect is not just about tools and platforms. It also shows how we are represented or overlooked across digital and media spaces. The way we see ourselves reflected matters. Media shapes how we view our value, our health, and what we believe is possible for our lives.
When Black women are only shown through narrow or stereotypical lenses, it reinforces harmful narratives that box us into roles we never chose. It limits how others see us and how we show up for ourselves. Real digital wellness means being seen fully, in ways that are honest, layered, and empowering. It means being represented in ways that reflect our wholeness, not just fragments.
Digital Redlining and the Structural Roots of Exclusion
The disparities Black women face in digital health are not just cultural. They are infrastructural. Digital redlining is a modern-day form of systemic neglect where internet providers invest less in predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods (Harvard Public Health Magazine, 2023). This results in slower internet, fewer public access points, and unreliable connections, making it harder to access care.
Research by Henson et al. (2022) makes it clear that these exclusions are not accidental. Without broadband equity, telehealth appointments, health portals, and even basic online research become privileges instead of tools for survival. When access to care is determined by ZIP code and Wi-Fi bandwidth, digital exclusion becomes a health risk.
Black Women’s Labor in Bridging the Gap
The burden of change has repeatedly fallen on the shoulders of Black women to fix what we did not break. Even in digital spaces, we are expected to translate complex guidelines, teach ourselves design frameworks like WCAG, and advocate in rooms where we were never invited. While these frameworks are important, they often feel out of reach without deep technical knowledge, funding, or institutional support. For many everyday creators, health advocates, and small business owners, figuring out how to make content accessible is a challenge, especially as diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts continue to be dismissed or erased altogether.
Still, we continue. We take the longer road toward equity, knowing it often begins with one voice and grows into something larger. We learn, we build, we share. We create digital spaces of care and connection not only for ourselves but for those who will come after us. Because we understand that our well-being is not an afterthought. It is necessary. It is worthy of protection.
Black Women as Digital Pioneers
Despite these barriers, Black women have led the way in reshaping digital wellness. Platforms like Health in Her HUE, founded by Ashlee Wisdom, connect Black women to culturally competent providers through directories, stories, and digital tools (Health in Her HUE, n.d.). These are not just services. They are responses to systems that have historically overlooked us.
We see this same innovation in the rise of Black-led wellness brands, femtech startups, and social media communities that prioritize culturally specific care. These efforts do more than fill in the gaps. They offer a new blueprint for what equity in digital health can be.
A Call for Inclusive Digital Health Solutions
Culturally Responsive Design
Include Black women from the very beginning in the development of digital health tools—not just as participants or afterthoughts, but as leaders, visionaries, and decision-makers shaping the process.Community-Based Digital Literacy
Create programs that break down digital accessibility in ways that feel approachable and useful for everyday creators, community leaders, and users. When we understand how to navigate and influence these tools, we reclaim power and agency.Policy Change
Advocate for broadband equity and stronger protections against digital redlining. Our digital infrastructure directly impacts our access to care, and it must be treated as a public health priority.Investment in Black-Led Innovation
Support and fund the work that Black women are already doing in this space. As POPSUGAR Tech (2022) points out, Black femtech founders are tackling issues that many others have yet to name, offering real solutions rooted in lived experience.
Reimagining Wellness for Us
Digital accessibility isn’t just about technology. It’s about equity, justice, and the right to live well. Reimagining wellness means being honest about how Black women have been left out—and how we’ve continued to show up, create, and lead in spite of that.
The future of digital health can’t be another space where we’re expected to adjust to systems that were never built with us in mind. It has to be one where our knowledge, our stories, our labor, and our leadership are not just acknowledged, but centered.
Our wellness is not something extra. It’s something we’re all entitled to.
References:
Harvard Public Health Magazine. (2023). Bridging the digital divide is a prescription for health equity. https://harvardpublichealth.org/equity/bridging-the-digital-divide-is-a-prescription-for-health-equity/
Health in Her HUE. (n.d.). Connecting Black women and women of color to culturally competent healthcare providers. https://healthinherhue.com/
Johnson, O., & Delk, D. W. (2024). #Wematter: Creating culturally tailored health promotion content for Black and Latina college women on Instagram. Digital Health, 10, 20552076241241919. https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076241241919
POPSUGAR Tech. (2022, February 3). These Black femtech startups are taking aim at medical racism. https://www.popsugar.com/tech/black-femtech-startups-health-49379874
